Epidural anesthesia improves pancreatic perfusion and decreases the severity of acute pancreatitis

Table 1 Clinical characteristics of patients with severe acute pancreatitis

Factor	Epidural anesthesia(n = 13)	Control group(n = 22)	P value1
Demographics
Age (yr)	66.08 (11.67)	57.36 (17.97)	0.092
Male sex, n (%)	7 (55.8)	12 (54.5)	0.968
BMI (kg/m2)	27.82 (6.13)	29.15 (7.08)	0.623
Pain duration prior hospitalization (h)	87.46 (198.85)	90.86 (208.36)	0.962
Comorbid conditions, n (%)			0.561
Diabetes	3 (23.1)	3 (13.6)
Hypertension	2 (15.4)	7 (31.8)
High cholesterol	2 (15.4)	3 (13.6)
Obesity	1 (7.7)	5 (22.7)
Chronic alcoholism	3 (23.1)	3 (13.6)
Cardiovascular condition	2 (15.4)	1 (4.5)
Aetiology of pancreatitis, n (%)			0.901
Alcoholic	3 (23.1)	6 (27.27)
Biliary	7 (53.8)	13 (59.1)
Hyperlipidaemia	1 (7.7)	1 (4.5)
Medication	0	0
Unknown	2 (15.4)	2 (9.1)
Ranson score at admission	3.38 (1.12)	2.68 (0.945)	0.056

¹Groups were compared with a t-test for continuous variables (or Wilcoxon Mann-Whitney test) and a Pearson χ² test (or Fisher exact test) for categorical variables. Values are mean (standard deviation) for continuous variables and n (%) for categorical variables.